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Interviews Michael C. Smith |
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MIKE STILL A CONFUSED SOUL Craig McCarthy THE DAILY MIRROR September 30 1978 Watching Michael Smith play Shane Archer in the channel 10 series The Restless Years it's hard to imagine the young actor is really a serious man. Young Archer is a confused soul of little consequence. But theatregoers who have caught Smith's performance in the Ensemble's play Lamb of God know this 21 year old has a fine future in acting. Smith plays an even more confused young soul but relishes the meatier dialogue to give an inspired performance. He overshadows Nick Hedstrom, his better-known colleague from The Restless Years. As a maturing student named Jim attending a catholic college, Smith has to cope with the contradictory dogma preached by some of his teachers. His task is made harder by his own domestic instability caused by constantly squabbling parents and the aggressive ramblings of his cadet corps mate, Nick. Smith said yesterday; "Playing Jim is easy because I had several school friends who were exactly like him." "I also knew boys who were like Mike and I can relate to the whole play without any difficulty." Smith's weekly timetable is hectic. Apart from his part in Lamb of God he is studying for an arts degree at Sydney University. He takes speech and singing lessons whenever he can and the occasional trip to Bodenweiser Dance School to brush up on the dancing he learned from noted choreographer Keith Bain. Smith has also played piano since the age of six, inspired by his mother who is a music teacher at Monte Saint Angelo girls school North Sydney. For one so young he is surprisingly candid about the success that has come his way. "I know without having experienced it personally that in acting you can be on top one day and down the next," he said. "I try to remember that whenever I'm recognised in public." THE RESTLESS YEARS HEART THROB IS LEAVING THE SERIES Cover Story Christine Richter TV WEEK June 30 1979 MICHAEL SMITH, heartthrob of The Restless Years, is tipped to become one of Australia's finest stage actors. And, if Michael has his way, he will give up his TV career to concentrate on Shakespeare and theatre. He plans to leave The Restless Years in July and, after an 11 week - overseas holiday, he hopes to get a role in a play. The good looking actor has played the part of Shane Archer in the 0-10 Network serial for the past 12 months. Now he feels it is time to move on to bigger things. "After that amount of time you outgrow a character and you're limited in what you can do with it," explains Michael. "It is no longer a challenge." "The Restless Years was great experience, but there are other parts I want to play. I really feel my career lies more on stage." And it is a view shared by many theatregoers. Michael's performances in Lamb of God, at the Ensemble theatre is Sydney late last year, and as Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, in Perth and Sydney, won rave reviews, with critics tipping him to make a big name for himself on the stage. Modest young man Michael shrugs this off by saying he only wants to be "a good actor." The writers of The Restless Years have already begun phasing his character out of the serial, and Michael will finish work in mid-July. But probably he will be seen on air until August. The disappearance of Shane, very much a central character in the show, will affect a great many people. On-screen Michael, who plays Shane, is surrounded by woman - his "mother" (Peggy Thomson)' his "sister" (Lenore Smith) and "wife", Raels (Victoria Nicolls) - and they all adore him. Off -screen it is very much the same story. Michael is one of the most popular members of the cast and the idol of female fans. (Michael and Lenore share the same surname, both on screen and off, but they are not related in any way.) Michael leaves for an 11 week holiday to Italy, Great Britain and the United States on July 21. "I've always wanted to go overseas, and this will be basically a holiday," Michael explains. "But I also want to check out what the work standards are like overseas and find out the best areas to work in." "I may want to go back in a few years to try my luck." On Michael's return to Australia in October, he hopes to have a role in a play. But at this time, nothing is definite. "I want to do as much stage work as I can get," he says. "I've been offered many roles in the last year but they have all been shades of parts I've already played."' "I don't want to repeat a character - you have to keep changing to progress." "I'd love to do more classical theatre, such as Romeo and Juliet, and new Australian plays.""I like emotional parts and traumas - something you can get your teeth into." "I need characters that tax me as an actor, and that's why Shakespeare appeals." "I don't mind doing a certain amount of TV. It is good for discipline, and makes the most of the smaller moments." "The Restless Years has been good for me, and the show has developed since I started in June last year. It has also helped put a lot of new talent on the market." Michael does not see many resemblances between himself and the character of Shane Archer. "Shane and I come from completely different backgrounds," he says. "I have an older and a younger sister but we are all fairly well adjusted." "Shane also fancies himself as a bit of a ladies man and, since he and his wife Raels decided they are just 'good mates', he has been on the prowl again." "Girls come up to me all the time when I'm out, but they're usually impressed by the TV character and not by me personally." "I am just getting over a break-up with a close friend, but astrologer has told me I will meet someone overseas in a few years time." "At the moment, I don't want to marry - my career automatically come first and I can't go into anything long term." Michael recalls that his more recent stage work hasn't been all plain sailing. When starring in Lamb Of God, Michael - who was brought up with a religious background - was required to smash a crucifix. The act worried him. "I agonised over it for days during rehearsals," Michael confessed. "The first night went OK, but the next morning my mother woke me and told me that Pope Paul V1 was dead." "The news affected me so badly I couldn't remember one entire scene for weeks." "There was a line in the script which had me saying 'Don't tell the Pope on me - I want to go out with a clean record." "I'd go 'dry' on the lines or slip up every time." "Then Pope John Paul 1 died, and that was almost too much. But finally I managed to overcome it." In Romeo and Juliet, Michael's Restless Years popularity turned the prestigious Seymour Centre in Sydney into something resembling a rock concert. When he walked on stage, the audience (mainly made up of students), giggled and whispered 'There's Shane.' Michael's ambition is to be recognised as Michael Smith and associated with many roles rather than just Shane, his first continuing TV part. FROM SOAP OPERA TO OPERA Anne Pilmer: THE AUSTRALIAN WOMAN'S WEEKLY June 1985 While on television Michael Smith kept his hand in by working in the theatre - his first love - at night. Young tenor Michael of the movie - idol looks will play Nanki Poo, wandering minstrel, in the Australian Opera's "The Mikado". Tenor Michael Smith would happily swap the roar of the crowd for the perfection of his craft. "Stardom doesn't interest me," he says; "My ambition is to be a highly skilled craftsman and to keep getting better - and better." After successful seasons as Motel in the Australian Opera's "Fiddler on the Roof" Michael has scored the role of leading tenor, playing the wandering minstrel Nanki Poo, in "The Mikado", which opens at the Sydney Opera House on June 14. The conductor will be Richard Bonynge. Michael says: "This production of 'The Mikado', directed by Chris Renshaw is virtually a reproduction of the English National Opera production which was an enormous success. It's an up dated, cheeky farce version and very exciting." Michael 28, has yearned to be an opera singer since he was a boy of six taking lessons from his piano teacher mother Patricia. "I was a precocious young pianist and all I wanted to be was a performer," he says, "I was lucky because I went to a Jesuit school with a strong theatrical tradition, so I've always been encouraged." "I decided to approach opera as an actor," he says. "I thought that would have more specific value than treating it as an art of the 19th century." With a BA from Sydney University and three years at Hayes Gordon's Ensemble Theatre under his belt, he was lucky enough to be cast in the soapies "Glenview High", "The Restless Years" and the male version of "Prisoner" called Punishment". "It was exciting and flattering to be in a television series only three years out of school." He says. Lean with tufty brown hair and blue eyes, and taller than you'd expect him to be Michael has the sort of movie star looks that could fill fan magazines. But he was involved with television for only about nine months. "I wanted to concentrate on theatre." He kept his hand in by working in theatre at night, during his soapie phase, then came a schools tour for the Australian Opera, "Candide" for the Nimrod and a musical about a woman wrestler called "Trafford Tanzi", before "Fiddler on the Roof". Earlier this year Michael shared the $10,000 Alan Bond scholarship for tenors, this took him to Los Angeles and New York for five weeks where he studied with Jack Metz, one of the world's top vocal coaches who comes to Australia for two or three months every year coaching. "I had my first auditions for 'The Mikado' early last year and I was told to come back in the winter, I thought I was sounding like a musical comedy singer so I worked with Jack in Australia, too. I wanted to work with him before 'The Mikado'". Home for Michael, who is unmarried, is a flat in Bondi. He has seen little of it this year. He has been on the road since January. He works hard to keep fit for his performances and goes to a gym four times a week. "You must stay well in this business and you can't get colds.", he said. Michael eats little red meat and says he has become almost a vegetarian lately. "This was one thing I noticed in the US, there the fitness craze is just fanatical. All the actors I came in contact with were very health oriented. They eat well." What little time is left is filled with studying theatre and opera. "I'm at the age when a tenor's voice matures, so this is an important stage in my career," Michael says. "If you want to use these years, you must be dedicated." "All the artists I admire have been hard workers. Talent, commitment and study really count in the US and I found many small companies where lots of actors had banded together in the interest of their craft. If some sort of stardom came in the end that was terrific, but what really mattered was the craft. The ultimate for me is to keep getting better." But the stardom he is so ambivalent about appears to be just around the corner. TENOR CAPTIVATES THE US Sarah Palmer THE WEST AUSTRALIAN 12/5/89 Michael Smith is not intimidated by performing with such greats as Placido Domingo and Dudley Moore in Los Angeles. Yet, as SARAH PALMER reports, the young Sydneysider, one of Australia's best young tenors has no delusions of grandeur. MICHAEL SMITH had just flown in from Sydney, bright eyed, energetic and showing no signs of fatigue. He was also showing no signs of being a rising young Australian tenor making it good in the US. Smith is refreshingly natural and despite the rumour that tenors are renowned to be overly aware of their importance as members of a rare species. "I don't think it's given me any delusions about greatness," he said. "When you're opposite the best you really understand where your place is." Smith admits working with Domingo in the world premier of a complete version of The Tales of Hoffman was stimulating. He says being opposite the world's most respected tenor was like having 100 lessons in one day. And working with Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller on the American production of The Mikado was non-stop laughter, which served to calm Smith's nerves. He says Dudley and Placido are able, generous and co-operative people and have given him a taste of how good it can be. Things have already been pretty good for Smith. He began his career in acting with the intention of working in opera and picked up some roles in "those terrible soap opera things" at the age of 20. After acting in film and television for several years, he worked in musicals primarily as an actor till they found he could sing a little and sent him to the late, vocal consultant, Ernst St John Metz In 1984 he won the Bond Family Scholarship for tenors. Because the tenor voice is the most fragile and takes longest to mature, tenors were being overlooked in singing competitions and it was necessary to institute a separate competition Eight young Australian tenors have received assistance from the scholarship since it was instituted in 1982 and are now forging promising careers. Smith says the scholarship and Metz were responsible for "making the old croaker work". Also in 1984, having observed his stage performances over three years, The Australian Opera offered him roles in Fiddler on the Roof and The Mikado. His impressive performance as Nanki Poo in The Mikado won him the same role in the US where he was heralded as the best ever in that role. Perth will be able to hear for itself on Friday when he sings a selection of Gilbert and Sullivan greats with the WA Symphony Orchestra. He will be joined in the "Fantastic Fridays" concert by Megan Sutton, Terry Burridge, Philip Rowe, Tony Howes and the WASO Chorus. The next day, he flies to Los Angeles to begin Rehearsals for the English National Opera's production of Orpheus in the Underworld in which he plays a tap dancing Mercury. Being associated with top names is of minimal advantage on the independent Australian scene, but in the US it gives him credentials to bypass auditions, having had an elevated debut. Despite frequent sojourns in the US in the last year, Smith is a Sydney actor forced to accept bread and butter jobs between glamorous operatic shows. That doesn't mean it's not important to him. He has become increasingly interested in contributing his skills to "work-shopping" musicals. This means dissecting primarily new scripts and songs for a period of two or three weeks and seeing what works and what doesn't. Smith says this is of particular importance in Australia where there is nowhere to try out new productions before major city premiers. In the US, he says, a show will travel for up to 18 months before it hits Broadway. Unlike it's film industry, Smith says Australia has yet to establish itself in musical theatre. "There seems to be some block with the Australian musical. Something's going wrong somewhere.' Considering Australia's limited history - compared with the rich US past - he suggest Australian writers should concentrate on contemporary themes with modern music rather than period pieces. And on what should Michael Smith concentrate? Right now his tap-dancing routine takes precedence - then he'll think about his future. This will most likely lie in musical comedy - but not necessarily Gilbert and Sullivan. At 32, smith is at an age where his tenor voice is sufficiently mature to tackle Mozart operas. But he says he's a light lyric tenor and not the right persona or voice to be considering Puccini's serious roles. Tickets for Gilbert and Sullivan Unlimited are sold out but it is expected to be broadcast on ABC FM soon. PROFILE MICHAEL SMITH Jo Litson: VOGUE AUSTRALIA August 1989 High note 2. the audience goes for the tap-dancing tenor's comic flair as much as his voice I worry about calling myself an Opera singer," says Michael Smith. Not because he doesn't love opera: it is his life. But because there is opera and opera, and Smith is very clear about which he wants to be associated with. He is on the brink of a big international career. His performances in The Tales of Hoffman and The Mikado for the Los Angeles Music Centre Opera, where Placido Domingo is the artistic adviser, have established him as a fine young tenor with an aptitude for off beat comic characterisation. Yet emerging from the kitchen of his spotless Bondi flat, welding a wooden spoon and a disarming boyish smile, he looks more like the juvenile lead in a twenties movie than the portly tenors who normally inhabit the operatic stage. And that is exactly how he was cast in Jonathan Miller's gloriously iconoclastic production of The Mikado in Los Angeles recently. Smith's portrayal of Nanki Poo (the part played in the televised production by Eric Idle) as something of a young Fred Astaire, complete with tap shoes and a chorus of bellboys, won him accolades and caught the eye of Domingo. The Los Angeles Music Centre Opera is exactly the sort of opera company Smith most admires. The English National Opera, which has also invited him to perform the role of Nanki Poo in 1990 (his London debut), is another. Both regularly employ top theatre directors such as Sir Peter Hall and Frank Corsaro to enrich the dramatic impact of their productions. "Opera has recently gone through a terrific transformation and is currently undergoing another," Smith says. "Now there are true ensemble companies where there is a real originality, personality and freshness of performance that you associate with good actors. Opera has now cross-fertilised with other twentieth century mediums. which is very important if it is to be relevant today." Smith began his career in Sydney in musical and straight theatre. His first major role was the lead in the television series The Restless Years. "From soap opera to opera," as he puts it. "I always knew I wanted to be on the operatic stage by the time I was thirty. There was, however, no need to rush. Knowing I was a tenor meant it was going to take a while for my voice to mature. If a tenor sings too early it sounds raw and a raw singer looks a bad singer. His first operatic role was in a schools tour for The Australian Opera in which he sang only three notes. They must have been three very good notes, for Moffatt Oxenbauld and Richard Bonynge of the AO were both very impressed (the role also gave vent to his considerable comic skills) and watched his progress closely for the next three years. the late Jack Metz coached him vocally, "and did one of his transformations on me", and after roles in Candide and Trafford Tanzi, the Australian Opera cast him in a production of The Mikado which led to the offer from Los Angeles. "The big attraction was to work with Domingo, says Smith. "To rehearse and perform with the best is worth five years of classes. I watch him like a hawk. He is a gorgeous man. A real Spanish father." Smith darts back into the kitchen to check the tofu. An air of serenity pervades the flat, a wonderful oasis between jobs. He'd also like to work here again in the future. But he enjoys the itinerant lifestyle. "I've resigned myself to no relationships. My life is my work. The last four months, following The Tales of Hoffman in Los Angeles have been spent in Sydney learning new roles and brushing up on his tap-dancing for his next role as Mercury in Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld. Now in his early thirties his voice has matured dramatically in the last twelve months and he is ready to start performing bigger roles, greatly encouraged by Domingo. "This is a very important period for me," he says. "while there is time to go through operas and pick every role apart dramatically and musically, I want to take full advantage of it. "I'm now preparing the roles that I hope I'll be performing three years from now. A LIFE AT THE CUTTING EDGE Angela Bennie: THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD 1996 Michael Smith is an unusual breed of performer. He has sung with Placido Domingo on the world stage; he has sung with Dudley Moore, believe it or not on the same stage. He has been an Australian soapie star. He is one of the leading proponents of 20th century avant-garde music. His is a strange mix of a career. Certainly his work with Australia's somewhat radical Camber Made Opera company and the contemporary music group, the Seymour Group, places him nearer the cutting edge of Australian music rather than at its more traditional, classical end. And now he is doing a one-night stand at the Sydney Opera House singing Gershwin, Porter, Bernstein et al. with singers Judi Connelli and Suzanne Johnston, Smith will perform Just This Once, 'a night of songs' by those giants of the American musical theatre whose sweet, foolish things remind us still and so well of a past world and time. Smith takes the extremes of his career in his stride. They have a purpose. He has known almost all his life what he wanted to do. It's just that in his case the range of doing has been so wide and multifaceted that the degree of commitment and discipline behind goes almost unnoticed. At an early age, Smith knew he wanted to be a singer. He studied at the conservatorium of Music and took a fine arts degree from the University of Sydney. Knowing that "tenors develop late", he studied with Hayes Gordon at the Ensemble Theatre: "I wanted to approach opera as an actor." This led to roles in the leading local soaps of the 1980's, The Restless Years and Glenview High. a promising acting career developed, not just in television but also in the theatre. Throughout the early 80s Smith performed with the Nimrod, The Ensemble, the Tasmanian Theatre Company and in Commercial theatre. In 1984, he won the Bond Family Scholarship for Tenors, which paid his way to New York and Los Angeles to study with Jack Metz the top tenor coach. On his return to Australia, he landed his first major role with the Australian opera, singing Nanki Poo in the Mikado It was to be the turning point of his career. The founder of the LA Opera Company, Peter Hemmings, saw his performance and snapped him up for the LA Opera's 1988 joint production with the English National Opera under the direction of the notorious and brilliant Jonathan Miller. Dudley Moore was to play Ko Ko to Smith's Nanki Poo. Smith found himself in distinguished company. Two weeks into rehearsal he was in still more distinguished company: cast in The Tales of Hoffman with Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes. "It was terrific - you leap for joy! They just kept booking me," says Smith. " When I came back here suddenly I had no work again. There was six months between the first job here and the second one, ad then there was a third. There was This Two - and a half year period where I was doing all this big stuff in LA and nothing here. There just wasn't much interest in me here." Smith wasn't deterred. More and more, his ideas were becoming clearer and surer. he knew he was utterly fascinated with "the New", whether in music or in art, generally. and he knew he was passionately interested in finding or, at least, being part of an attempt to articulate an "Australian" music and an Australian vocabulary for it. "I was obsessed with modern art as a child, and when modernism sort of fizzed out in the mid 1970s I really felt the absence of it. It's a feeling of wanting to pursue the new. But I also want to demystify it, consolidate it and make it more accessible. I don't think contemporary music should be this numbing thing. I want the 'cutting edge' to become popular theatre, so that it feeds in and goes down the musical line - I mean we wouldn't have Phantom without Puccini. I am not saying it (Phantom) is plagiarism; I am saying the task is making big developments in music more accessible. When they are they become part of popular theatre. "Also I want to sing Australian music. I want to sing music that has come from a similar unconscious. When I was a kid, I used to play Peter Sculthorpe, and I didn't know what it was; I was just drawn to it. I thought 'that's what I want to play.' It defines our experience, illuminates our experience." "I am not investing a lot of time in the idea of the Australian musical because I believe that that is an American form. We have had enough of 'Life in America' and the American experience. There is an Australian music theatre that is emerging, and that's what I want to be involved in." Involved in it he is. his work with Chamber Made has found him performing in its production of Philip Glass's The Fall of the House of Usher and in the company's extraordinary production last year of Gordon Kerry's Medea. Smith was by now - and is -exactly where he dreamt of being: ensconced in the Australian new music scene, trying to articulate and Australian musical idiom and theatre. He now has plans for his own company - a chamber opera project is well under way, a composer on hold, a structure mapped out and a performance date projected for 1996. So why the one-night stand - and old American standards? "In order to do what I have to do, and want to do," says Smith, without apology, I have to do the occasional musical (he has just appeared in the Sydney Theatre company's production of Falsettos), the occasional opera or operetta ( performed last year in the Australian opera's La Perichole), and this Just This Once). "It lifts my profile; it makes me a little better known. You can't do things on the cutting edge and survive in Australia unless you have a profile." |